Sunday, March 22, 2009

It was like making out with every runner in DC.

I think Joe's sister summarized it perfectly (to paraphrase):

"So you PRed, but you also got the herp. It all about balances out."

Now that I have teased you into reading a long rambling race report, I probably should start.

Friday, we had a little bloggy runner meetup and it was good times people. Since I am a lazy linker, I will link to Audrey, who posted a photo and linked to all the bloggers in it. It was fun to meet everyone in person, even if I have been a blogging slacker in the last month and don't really deserve the title of "blogger."

So like Jeanne, I made Ray tell me how I should run this race and then kind of ignored it. What I didn't ignore, was the advice to lay off the Adams Morgan hill. Anyway, who ignores advice that says "Go ahead, be lazy."

Definitely not this girl.

Joe was kind enough to drop me off at the start around 6:20ish. After hitting the portapottie line, begging the med tent for some motrin, which I had forgotten to take, I found my corral and bumped into Jeanne.

And then we were off! I tried to ease into things and lay off a little on the first mile and ended up with a 10:30, which was NOT in the plan. So then with the help of a downhill I ran mile 2 in like 9:40 to even it out. Then I managed to settle into a pretty regular pace through mile 6, coming through there at 61 minutes. Then the big hill began and I laid off, yielding me a nice 11 minute mile for mile 7.

So at this point, I kinda thought my chances of PRing were slim. I'd have to run 10 minute miles for the last six miles to get in under previous PR. And that seemed highly unlikely given my fitness theses days.

But you know what? Apparently that first half really was quite uphill even if it didn't feel that way too badly. Miles 8-11 I was easily cruising at like 9:45 pace. There was another uphill getting to Mile 12, but it was mostly downhill to the finish after that. Those downhills mentally saved me, since I knew I could handle running downhill for a mile at the end.

I hit Mile 12 at 2:02 and I realized I just needed to pull out an 11 min pace for the rest to PR, which seemed totally doable given the downhill (although I was fading fast). At that moment a little Beyonce came on the ipod and I got my groove on and finished this baby up in 2:12:58, about a minute PR. Looking at the race results, I averaged 10:14 through the first 10k and then 10:09 overall.

I finished at almost the same exact time as the marathon winner. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why there were police motorcycles blocking my way as I tried to get down the finisher's chute. Didn't they know I had a PR to get?!!!

And so now you may ask, where on earth do diseases come into this?

So I loved the course, but srsly National, get some effing cups. I got water at Mile 3 and took two clif blocks. I was going to take a swig of gatorade at Mile 5 but there were no cups so I just decided to hold out until Mile 7. I got to Mile 7 and there were no cups there either.

Ruh-roh.

So I followed suit with every other runner and chugged water straight out of gallon water bottles they had out. There was a concerted effort to not touch the bottle at all with one's mouth, but we are talking 8000 runners. Someone at some point hit the bottle.

Mile 9, still no cups.

Mile 11, STILL no cups.

Seriously, you would think that after they ran out of cups, someone would have gotten their ass to ANYWHERE that sells cups and bought a boatload and gotten them to the aid stations. Fortunately the weather was cool so there wasn't as much of a need for water, but I personally needed it to get my nutrition down.

So yeah, I was swigging left and right. If I end up with some weird ass disease, I'm totally sending my bill to the race director.

16 comments:

Rainmaker said...

Congrats on the PR! And that's whacky that they ran out of cups. Woah. Just like Army 10-miler two years ago.

As for the motorcycles, I'm sure you realize they were blocking for the inbound winner of the marathon. I was watching as that all went down - it was kinda funny as they seemed to have 'forgetten' about that whole marathon winner thing.

Great to meet up with ya!

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the PR! Maybe the used some of the money for the cups for the AIG exc.

KimsRunning said...

I'm not so sure I'd have sipped from the community water jug. I'm surprised you did, you, being a scientist and all...LMAOOOOOOOOO

Awesome race, spectacular PR!! I'm so jealous you got to meet some bloggers!!!

peter said...

Greaty race, Danielle. And after your measley little pre-race salad at the Chop House too. Imagine your PR if you'd a sprung for the Iowa Pork Chops! It was good meeting you, even if I didn't hear a word you said, being way at the other end of the table (you were keeping Not Born to Run in stitches, though, and you even made DC Rainmaker break out of his game face a time or two to crack a smile).

ButterPeanut said...

ew, gross!

i mean, good job!

Lesser is More said...

Great race and look at what a little pacing can do. You negative split it! I guess listening to Ray helps everyone!

Great to meet you and I hope you washed your mouth out with soap for the next 2:12:58 after the race. That should do the trick and keep you disease free.

Anonymous said...

um, wow. who runs these events?!?!

congratulations danielle!!!

jeanne said...

Feel the D.C. LOVE!!! I guess I was just so THRILLED that they hadn't actually run out of water, that I didn't care about the exchange of saliva. I even picked a cup off the ground at one point. Some of those water stops were in FRONT of grocery stores. where (I'm just guessing here) I think they might have sold cups!

The Army 10 miler to which ray is referring ran out, not of cups, but of water. We drank out of the pigeon fountains. We're a hardy bunch, us dc-ers!

So fun meeting you and you were ROCKING. You blew past me several times, and i think you might have made the mistake of saying something positive to me. That's an instant jinx, just for future reference. And thanks for giving me the abba song at the start. I STILL can't get momma mia outta my head!

Let's do this again, soon! :)

Joe said...

i was debating secretly reloading your ipod with a selection of joe's favorite running music after you went to bed, but i decided against it at the last minute...

Unknown said...

Well run!

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Way to go, sister! (By which I don't mean for the PR, but for blaming your herpes on the water jugs instead of your own indiscriminate promiscuity!)

Way to go, sister! (<--that one's for the PR.)

Rebecca said...

It was great to meet you and Congrats on the PR!

Re: the cups. They certainly had plenty of water at our rest stop. No idea who planned out the amount of cups. At one point (after everyone passed through mile 3)the leader said they were bringing more cups for mile 17 runners... that never happened.

sherri said...

i hope you didn't catch the herp! congrats on the PR and thanks for the shout out :)

you forgot to mention your lovely view from your hotel in the report!

Amy said...

Congrats on the PR!!!! That's awesome...

Hopefully you're still alive to read this and didn't contract some deadly disease from the community water bottles at the race...

M said...

best title and opening lines to any blog post. ever.

sherri said...

i felt the need to re-comment on this and point out that i was in fact correct...you DO have the herp! you better hope the race director doesn't catch wind of you being the dirty one and send you everyone else's doctors' bills :)